Free Power? Grading 10 Off-Beat Energy Ideas

It is every backyard inventor's dream to develop a new power source that will provide unlimited energy to the world. More often than not, the dream is a mirage which leads its inventor ever farther from physics and deeper into fantasy. Then again, some out-there ideas could offer real hope for the future. Here are a handful of cutting-edge technologies that, their inventors hope, could lead to cheap, plentiful energy.

Fuel Cells

How it works:

In 1838, English scientist Robert Grove showed how electrolysis could be worked in reverse, and how hydrogen and oxygen react together in the presence of a catalyst to produce electricity. Ever since, fuel cells burning hydrogen or other fuels such as methanol have been touted as clean, quiet and green power sources. The technology is finally becoming practical, from tiny fuel cells to replace batteries in portable devices to large ones that can power buildings.

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Good for certain applications, such as medium-size public buildings, when the economics are worked out.

Atomic Battery

How it works:

It's not possible to scale down an atomic reactor, but it is relatively easy to harness the radiation emitted by radioactive materials and convert it into electricity. Atomic batteries have long powered satellites, and new thin-film technology means atomic power sources can be made the size of a penny, although the power output is a fraction of a watt.

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Nuclear Isomers

Livermore scientists are this device using to determine the quantities of energy released from various isomers in an excited state. (Photo from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

How it works:

Isomers are elements whose nuclei can be nudged to release energy by firing X-rays at them. This was the idea behind DARPA's unsuccessful "atomic hand grenade" project using nuclear isomers. However, the technology may be more suited to the slow release of batteries than of bombs. Army scientists are carrying out research into nuclear isomers for atomic power sources whose output can be turned up or turned off at will.

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This idea is some way off—if it works.

Aneutronic Fusion

How it works:

While practical hydrogen fusion may be twenty years away, aneutronic fusion offers an alternative. Fire a high-speed proton at a Boron target and the two fuse together to form three helium nuclei and a lot of energy. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) scientists recently looked into making a fusion reactor of this type small enough to fit on a silicon chip to make self-powered devices. They found it was not yet practical.

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Engineering it might take a few decades.

Cold Fusion

The U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare System's Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego, CA is a center for cold fusion research in the U.S. (Photo by Carl Jantzen)

How it works:

In 1989 Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons claimed to have produced a nuclear reaction at room temperature in the laboratory by electrolysing heavy water using a palladium cathode. Other scientists failed to repeat their results and cold fusion was widely rejected. But some researchers, including the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, still believe that low-energy nuclear reactions have a future as a power source.

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Still on the fringes, but venture capitalists will continue to watch this space.

BlackLight

How it works:

BlackLight Power's novel power source is based on a new grand unified theory of classical physics. This states that a hydrogen atom can collapse into a previously unknown form called a hydrino, producing energy. By using the energy produced to electrolyze water to generate hydrogen, BlackLight power systems can effectively use water as fuel. Researchers at Rowan University claim to have confirmed "anomalous heat production" from BlackLight's setup.

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A working power plant would settle scientific doubts—but when will we see one?

Giant Dipping Birds

How it works:

The dipping bird is a hollow glass figure which repeatedly dips its beak into a glass of water. This is not perpetual motion, but a type of heat engine, exploiting the difference in temperature between the air and the water it dips into. The units can be used to generate tiny amounts of power, and, in principle, giant dipping birds could be constructed which would generate more power—but at a prohibitively high cost per kilowatt.

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Wildly impractical, but a giant-dipping-bird farm sure would be a sight to behold.

Antimatter

How it works:

The ultimate power source, antimatter packs more energy than nuclear fuel. To release it, just allow an antiparticle to come into contact with normal matter, and then capture the energy released. In principle, antimatter could power even the smallest devices. However, at present, antimatter can only be manufactured in particle accelerators, wasting over 99.999 percent of the energy used in the process. A cheap source of antimatter would change everything.

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Orbo

How it works:

Developed by Irish company Steorn, the Orbo device is said to defy the laws of thermodynamics by putting out more energy than is put in, using precisely positioned magnetic fields. In June 2009 a panel of independent scientists appointed by Steorn concluded that the company "has not shown the production of energy." From April 2010 Steorn has offered to share its secret technology with developers for a license fee of about $500.

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Not many believers left after the 2009 verdict.

Zero-Point Energy

How it works:

According to theories of quantum physics, the universe is pervaded with zero-point energy due to fuzziness on the quantum scale of reality. In theory it is possible to extract this energy to do useful work, a fact often quoted by inventors, though no ZPE device has yet been demonstrated. The problem is that there may not be very much of it about. Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg estimates that a space the size of the earth contains zero-point energy equal to about 1 gallon of gasoline.